Video: How the 2014 Winter Olympics transformed Sochi

Moderate Islamist party big winner in Tunisia’s election

Tunisia’s moderate Islamist Ennahda party has been confirmed as the big winner of the country’s historic October 23 elections according to official results released on Monday, taking 89 of the 217 seats in the new constituent assembly.

AFP - The moderate Islamists of the Ennahda party have won 89 of the 217 seats in Tunisia's new constituent assembly, according to definitive official results released Monday.

The runners up in the first free elections in the north African country were the left-wing Congress for the Republic (CPR; 29 seats) and the Popular Petition (26 seats).

The turnout was 54.1 percent, according to the electoral commission, which specified that about four million of the 7.6 million registered voters cast their ballots in the election on October 23.

The left-wing Ettakatol won 20 seats, the Progressist Democratic Party took 16 and the Democratic Modernist Pole took five.

Some of the remaining seats went to very small parties, including the Communists who won three, while 16 seats went to candidates who stood on independent lists.

The new constituent assembly will meet for the first time on November 22 in the premises of the old parliament building in Tunis.

The body's task is to draw up a new constitution, after the ouster last January 14 of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who had ruled Tunisia for 23 years.

The assembly will also form a new executive branch of power and can legislate until general elections are held.

Ennahda has already put forward its deputy leader Hamadi Jebali for the post of prime minister, while discussions are in hand among the Islamists, the CPR and Ettakol for the choices of head of state and speaker of the constituent assembly.

Interim President Fouad Mebazaa and the provisional government led by Beji Caïd Essebsi, formed a month and a half after the fall of Ben Ali, will remain in charge until a new team is ready to take over.